Horses,
healing and liberation
Beginning a therapeutic riding center
by Carter Heyward
"Thank
you for giving me my daughter." This epitaph by a woman to a horse named
Woody was in response to the pivotal role Woody had played in helping her autistic
daughter begin to speak for the first time.
My companions and I heard about Woody in May 2000 when we visited "Flying Changes," a therapeutic horseback-riding center in Topsham, Me., founded about 10 years ago by Barbara Goudy, a creative lover of horses and humans. Barbara told us that Woody, who had died only a few weeks before our visit at the ripe old horse-age of 35, had been a cast-away horse in 1993. She had been drawn to him as he stood in the corner of a dark stall at a horse auction, where his most likely future would have been to become a tasty item on a European menu. Instead, Woody went home with Barbara Goudy and went on to become the "Therapy Horse of the Year" for the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association (NARHA). Again and again, during his seven years as a therapy horse, Woody played an instrumental role in bringing autistic children to speech. Upon his death, thank-you notes and prayers of gratitude poured in from all over southeast Maine and from elsewhere in the nation.
The Woody story, and conversations with Barbara Goudy and others who have initiated or participated in therapeutic horseback-riding programs in the last couple of decades, persuaded me that I share this vocational pull. And so in the summer of 2000, with a hearty team of friends and colleagues, Maureen McManus, an acupuncturist and body worker in Brevard, N.C., and I began to lay foundations for a program in therapeutic horseback-riding and education in the mountains of western North Carolina.
In September 2000 we named this program "Free Rein." A few weeks later, Free Rein’s Board of Directors met for the first time and hired as our Executive Director a woman, Carolyn Bane, whose experiences both as an equestrian and in working with special-needs children made her a promising choice for this position. In October Free Rein was incorporated by the state of North Carolina and, in March 2001, we heard from the IRS that we were officially a tax-exempt non-profit organization, which meant that we could begin to raise money. This, of course, is a challenge we share with a gazillion other "nonprofits" in these times in which we’re all competing for relatively tiny portions of the huge charitable pie.
The horse is the priest Once I had decided to initiate a therapeutic riding program, I began talking with everyone I could about how to do it. In May 2000, shortly after meeting Barbara Goudy at "Flying Changes," I happened to be at a seminary conference and was having breakfast with Larnie Otis, a former student at Episcopal Divinity School who is currently a priest in Maine. As we were catching up, I mentioned to Larnie my emerging interest in therapeutic riding. She put down her fork, shook her head as if in astonishment, and turned to me, excitement in her voice. She said that, prior to seminary, she herself had been deeply involved in therapeutic horseback-riding and I’ll never forget the words that came out of Larnie’s mouth: "If you move in this direction, Carter, you’ll discover that the horse is the priest." At this point, her eyes teared up, and we two priests sat in silence, both a little stunned by the impact of this claim. More than a year later and still early in the operations of "Free Rein," our therapeutic horseback-riding center in North Carolina, I am just beginning to take in some the meanings of these words – the horse is the priest. First of all, even from a rather traditional Christian perspective, to assert that the horse is priest is not simply to lift up a poetic image, nor is it hyperbole. It is theology, good theology, the kind rooted in a living spirituality. If God is the creative wellspring of all that lives and breathes and loves, and if God meets us through those who offer us occasions to drink from this healing spring, then surely it is this same holy spirit that a horse offers to the child or adult who comes, seeking strength. The priest in catholic tradition is, after all, fashioned theologically as a mediator, one who stands at the altar for both God and humanity, in some way representing each to the other. This is what the horse is doing at the altar of the therapeutic arena – bringing together the human rider and her/his restorative, healing power; helping open the rider to this sacred energy and, we can faithfully presume, helping open God to the embodied yearnings and needs of a particular human (and horse?). From this very catholic perspective, therapeutic horseback-riding, like the eucharist, can be an occasion of thanksgiving, in which humans and our divine life are united through our human participation in the holiest of "sacrifices" – God’s giving up of divine control in order to be there with, and for, those in need. Giving its body over to the human need for strength and health, the horse represents God in this transaction. The horse also represents our human moral capacity to give ourselves over to empowering one another and other creatures to go together (walking, trotting, cantering, if you will) in right, more fully mutual, relationship, in which we move together, more nearly as one, a people united. At the same time, the human rider, empowered through the horse – like all who partake of the holy eucharist – represents all humans and other creatures who need to draw our strength, our sacred power, from struggling for right, justice-making, compassionate connectedness with one another. This right relation is forged through our willingness, following Jesus, to give up our spiritually ignorant claims to autonomy and independence in order to be there for one another in an authentically holy communion. The building of such community – like the creative relational connectedness between horse and rider and those who accompany them – always generates sacred space in which miracles can happen. That’s a fairly traditional Christian interpretation of the horse’s role as priest. But it pushes well beyond catholic interpretation in one way and protestant in another. And both of these movements beyond much of our theological heritage are significant: The images offered above move beyond catholicism in the implicit assumption that the human rider as well as the horse can be priest. The autistic child, the teenager at risk, the addicted woman or man not only represents our human/creaturely need for one another’s presence and solidarity. These riders also offer us experiences and images of the sacred power that touches and changes not only human life, but the rest of creation as well. At its best, therapeutic horseback-riding is a mutual endeavor, in which the horse, as well as the rider, is affected – touched, empowered, often brought to new life. For many feminist Christians, this radical mutuality rings deeply true in the Jesus story as well, in which the brother from Nazareth is not the only agent of sacred, healing power. Rather, like the horse, Jesus receives healing energy even as he gives it. Indeed, his sacred power is "sacred" precisely because it is shared – a powerfully holy spirit because it belongs to no one, but rather to all. In the Jesus story, in the Christian eucharist, and in therapeutic riding, God is not simply represented by Jesus, the ordained priest, or the horse. God is the power, the sacred healing energy, that is generated between and among all the characters in the drama – Jesus and the rest of people, the priest and the rest of the people, the horse and the rider and the rest of the creatures, human and others, with them. Larnie Otis was right: The horse is the priest; and so is the person with special needs who comes seeking healing and strength. The implication of this theology that spins us way beyond protestantism is its profound affirmation of creatures-other-than-human as being as much in God, of God, and part of God’s healing, liberating work as we humans can be. Is it a sacrilege or a sacramental revelation to affirm that the horse, like Jesus, is our priest? Does it move us outside the bounds of Christian faith, or can it deepen and radicalize our Christian witness, to claim that therapeutic horseback-riding is as filled with the presence and power of the living God as any place of Christian worship can be? As a priest, I have no doubt that Christian worship and sacrament has for too long been not only patronizingly male-centered but also arrogantly human-centered. We have been unfaithful to the rest of God’s creation, and thus to God. Realizing this in my soul, I am grateful to be able to turn to the horse and rider as my own priest. I am filled with awe in my yearning to be open to whatever God may be teaching us in new ways. Or is it that we are being called to something God has been teaching since before the worlds began – an ancient wisdom, a dimension of Sophia, which some of us late learners may be hearing and seeing for the first time? In the context of therapeutic riding, is my vocation now to become an acolyte to horse and rider? – A version of this reflection is included in Carter Heyward’s new book, God in the Balance: Christian Spirituality in Times of Terror, The Pilgrim Press, 2002. |
The pastoral is the political
How did this begin for me, this interest in therapeutic horseback-riding that I seem to share not only with other white middle-class crones (women "of an age," or fast approaching) but also former president Reagan’s family and probably many other folks I have never been in the same political or theological room with, and until now would have had a hard time carrying on a conversation with, unless it were about horses and healing in very limited ways?
It began for me long before I ever thought about being a priest, theologian, seminary teacher or writer. As far back as I can remember, like many girls of my social location and many others as well, I’ve been fascinated by horses; and just as far back, I’ve known to my bones that the (pastoral) work of healing and the (political) work of liberation are closely and inextricably connected. For me, making these connections is the heart and soul of both feminism and Christian faith, which is why I am both feminist and Christian and will be as long as I live. Feminism and Christianity, which are mutually interactive, always call us more fully into ministry among the cast-offs, humans and other creatures alike.
For this reason I do not regard the therapeutic horseback-riding movement as non-political, much less a reactionary turning away from the realms of justice-making and the struggles against oppression. Of course it can be used in this way, as can any ministry of healing. Perhaps many of its proponents would choose to view it this way, as they might any other charitable work. But how much more challenging and exciting to assume that working with individuals with physical and mental disabilities, and with communities of people who are "at risk" in society, is necessarily political work! By people at risk, I mean kids of color, I mean poor kids, I mean teenagers in trouble with the law, kids and adults struggling to recover from addictions of various sorts, battered women and children, women and men who are mentally ill, senior citizens who are depressed because they feel expendable and invisible, and many others.
Therapeutic horseback-riding is one of a million charitable undertakings that can be, and should be, subversive in its lessons and liberative in its healings not only of individuals but also communities. In good faith, our healing work – as instructors, board members, volunteers, indeed as pastors in the broadest sense, regardless of what if any religious affiliations – cannot stop with a child’s learning to speak, as exhilarating as this is for the child, her family and friends, her teacher, and perhaps (who knows?) the horse whose energy has touched her. It’s wonderful that we focus intently upon the individual horse and rider while they are working in the arena. It’s wonderful – and the healing process doesn’t stop here, because every individual is part of a larger whole, a community, a society that is also in need of healing.
Toward a just, creature-loving world
We are called to pay attention to the social and personal dimensions of healing and liberation. Folks involved in therapeutic horseback-riding are in a good position to do so. There are, after all, hundreds of therapeutic riding centers in the U.S. and Europe, where it originated as a movement in the middle of the 20th century. Therapeutic horseback-riding is fast becoming a respected form of community work and a favorite recipient of charitable donations because it is often such an effective resource of empowerment for disabled and cast-away children and adults. As workers in this context, we can be effective community organizers, and this is what we need to be doing.
We need to be attentive to how "our people" and "our horses" – socially marginalized people and creatures – are regarded and treated at local, state, and national levels of our life together. We share not only a vocation to helping horses help people – and helping people help horses – but also to helping our government help people rather than casting aside those with pressing needs for food, education, health care, and basic respect, as well as those with special needs due to disabilities. This means that we work for social change wherever and however we can. And it means that, wherever possible, we work together – we in the therapeutic riding world as well as folks in other nonprofits and in those organizations and movements that are committed to the struggles for justice.
We encourage and delight in the children and adults who come to us. We also work against the racism which continues to disable our communities, regardless of our ethnic and cultural roots, and which plays no small part in shaping how individuals are able to handle their own and others’ handicaps. We marvel as children on horseback squeal with delight. We also raise our voices against the sexual and gender injustices which invariably are playing some role in determining how people experience and express their needs. We groom and care for our horses. We also question why most horses, like most humans, in this and other societies are treated with contempt and valued primarily, even only, for the profit they generate. We love our horses, our students and clients, our work, our communities – and, because we do, we become rabble-rousers on behalf of a more fully just, deeply creature-loving community and world.
So then, back to Woody. Free Rein has just witnessed an autistic child’s first speech – Sean spoke to "Max" the other day, and we are still reeling from the joy and astonishment of the kind of breakthrough that many who know autism say is "miraculous." Working in a therapeutic riding program is working amidst the possibilities of miracles each day. It helps me ponder the Bible in fresh ways with eyes and mind wide open. But I’m also aware that, in the Bible as well as here today in places like Free Rein and Flying Changes, there is another kind of miracle that we Christians are called to expect – the miracle of local communities and state and national movements of people organized across culture and class not simply to feed the hungry, but to eliminate hunger; not simply to clothe the naked and shelter the homeless, but to eliminate poverty; not simply to administer to those with disabilities of many kinds, but to create a social order in which solidarity with disabled and marginalized people and creatures has become a way of life; not simply to care for horses and humans, but to struggle for a world in which horses, humans, and all creatures are treated with respect and invited to share in a common-wealth. These are the miracles we horse lovers, human lovers, Christians, feminists, and other justice workers are called to expect and, by God, to generate.
Carter Heyward is a professor of theology at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and Chair of the Board of Directors of Free Rein Center for Therapeutic Riding and Education in Brevard, N.C.